GameDev.net Spotlight

Getting Started

So you want to break into the video game industry (you want a game biz job). First, you have to know which type of job you want -- if you don't know which you want, you need to read about the game industry and the types of jobs in it. Then you might need to make a decision. Third, you need to be qualified for the job. Fourth, you need to know how to find information and how to ask good questions (you need to not ask bad questions). Finally, we have tips for getting the job.

I'm attending NCSU and I'm in my second semester of freshmen year. I know I want to do Computer Science but I'm not sure if I want to do the game development concentration or not. The main difference is in the junior and senior years when you choose what CSC classes to take to fill the needed number of credits in CSC, you take gaming related classes. You still get all the important classes for solid foundation in computer science. I'm sure having the concentration would help me at least a little for getting a job in the industry, but I'm curious as to how much? Also, would it hurt my chances of getting a non-gaming related job if I can't get one in the industry?

I would say you should take a hard look at exactly what the differences will be in the classes taken in each case. Go with the ones where you believe the content you'll be learning would be more suited to a university setting. In my own degree program, I'm rather glad I took some of the more advanced compiler design and language design classes, not because I need that knowledge a lot, but because I probably never would have gotten it outside of university, whereas most of the game design stuff I was able to teach myself outside of school without too much trouble.

I could be wrong, but I don't believe the choice you make will directly effect your ability to get a job in either direction.

I'm working on a game! It's called "Spellbook Tactics". I'd love it if you checked it out, offered some feedback, etc. I am very excited about my progress thus far and confident about future progress as well!

I would say you should take a hard look at exactly what the differences will be in the classes taken in each case. Go with the ones where you believe the content you'll be learning would be more suited to a university setting. In my own degree program, I'm rather glad I took some of the more advanced compiler design and language design classes, not because I need that knowledge a lot, but because I probably never would have gotten it outside of university, whereas most of the game design stuff I was able to teach myself outside of school without too much trouble.

I could be wrong, but I don't believe the choice you make will directly effect your ability to get a job in either direction.

That's a good point

To clear things up, all the core classes, including advanced level classes, are mostly the same either way. The difference between the two would be in my junior senior year I would have the choice between Digital Systems Interfacing/Internet Protocols/Graph Theory/etc (normal CS) vs Intro to AI/Human-Computer Interaction/etc (game design).

The difference between the two would be in my junior senior year I would have the choice between Digital Systems Interfacing/Internet Protocols/Graph Theory/etc (normal CS) vs Intro to AI/Human-Computer Interaction/etc (game design).

Honestly, the CS-track courses will probably have more value in the long run. They aren't going to be able to cram a whole lot of content into an intro AI course, and the human interaction and design stuff is all easy to pick up on the side.

The difference between the two would be in my junior senior year I would have the choice between Digital Systems Interfacing/Internet Protocols/Graph Theory/etc (normal CS) vs Intro to AI/Human-Computer Interaction/etc (game design).

Honestly, the CS-track courses will probably have more value in the long run. They aren't going to be able to cram a whole lot of content into an intro AI course, and the human interaction and design stuff is all easy to pick up on the side.

Graph theory and networking, however, will help you out everywhere.

I've been looking at what classes I can take, and I could actually take several gaming-related classes with the normal CSC degree. They were:

Game Engine Foundations

Advanced Computer Game Projects

Building Game AI

I think I may plan on going this route for now.

Also, we have a program that allows me to get my CSC undergrad + masters in 5 years. Would a masters be useful?

I know I'm planning really far ahead here but it's nice to have a good idea of what I'll be doing over the next few years.

When I was at uni, "Intro to AI" wasn't applicable to games (i.e. it didn't teach you anything about how to make game AI characters/monsters/etc -- which involves path-finding, planning, state-machines, behaviour trees, etc), but was thrown into the "Comp-Sci : Games Tech" course because it sounded like it might be. It was actually a course on Prolog, etc...

HCI is a decent thing for devs to know about, but again isn't game-focused... it's about GUI efficiency, etc... That class was a breeze...

From that, the games major doesn't actually sound very different to a regular software engineering major.

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Game Engine Foundations
Advanced Computer Game Projects
Building Game AI